Nintendo Will Reinvent Itself Yet Again in 2017

It’s been a relatively rough set of years for Nintendo. The company’s investment in the Wii U hasn’t particularly paid off with customers regularly confusing it for its immediate predecessor, just to name one concern with the console, and while the Nintendo 3DS is an excellent device, mobile video gaming continues to move to phones and tablets. Fortunately, the company seems reinventing itself in 2017.

If there’s one thing to be said of Nintendo, it’s that the business is constantly shifting and relocating manner ins which Sony and Microsoft do not. These experiments don’t constantly turn out (see again: The Nintendo Wii U) but when they do, they pay off big time like the original Nintendo Wii. 2016 was a year of laying the foundation for exactly what might be another huge year for the business.

Clearly the greatest and biggest modification is the Nintendo Switch. Slated for March 2017, the Switch is sort of both the next console and the next portable from the company. Generally speaking, a “console” has implied one that’s typically plugged into something like a television with more space and processing power to its name whereas a “handheld” is still a console, just smaller sized and less effective. The Switch straddles the line.

How well it’ll straddle that line exactly stays unclear. Part of the reason handhelds are portable is that they trade off the graphics ability for size. The Switch can be plugged into a dock that’ll let it play on a television, and then undocked to play the same video game on the go. Even if there’s a conclusive difference in graphics quality, or battery life, that’s still a huge dive from Sony’s Remote Play feature and so forth.

On top of simply the hardware specifications and general “play here or play there” attitude of the device, Nintendo’s focus going forward also seems developing. One significant aspect of the expose trailer for the Switch really showcases exactly what looks like an esports tournament of all things.

Of the huge three, Nintendo’s by far the worst at supporting such occasions, but maybe the similarity Splatoon and the ongoing success of competitive Super Smash Bros. and Pokémonhas actually lastly made development in persuading the business.

And let’s for a minute ignore that Nintendo’s latest console is releasing in 2017. Even then, it’s going to be a huge year for your home That Mario Built. On top of the release of Super Mario Run in late 2016, there’s set up to be mobile titles for the popular Nintendo franchises of Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem early in 2017 if all remains the same. Which’s just the pointer of the iceberg.

Presuming the abovementioned titles are as much of a success as Super Mario Run, it’s easy to imagine Nintendo and DeNA (the mobile video games company Nintendo partnered with to produce Super Mario Run et al) pumping them out as quick as Nintendo will permit.

The variety of franchises that would benefit from a major mobile title is staggering, and Nintendo’s lineup goes far deeper than the normal suspects of Zelda and Mario games. A Metroid, for instance, that recalls to earlier portable games would likely do gangbusters.

Any way you slice it, 2017’s going to huge for Nintendo. The Switch and the concentrate on mobile titles is just exactly what we know going in, and it’s completely possible that E3 2017 and so forth completely alters what the latter half of the year looks like for the business.

It’s relatively typical to predict doom and gloom for Nintendo at any provided junction, however offered exactly what we currently know? The future is looking quite bright.